Memorial Day weekend seemed, to me, like the perfect time to get out of the city and go enjoy something more natural, and my friends agreed. We got together to try to decide what we were going to do. Should we camp at Mt. Rainier? Visit the rain forest on the Olympic Peninsula? Finally, a decision was made: Ocean Shores was our destination. We would go and enjoy the beach, something we don't get to do very often at all. So we loaded up the car with kites and flip flops and off we were!

 

While I was at Ocean Shores, I knew I wanted to write about part of it for my blog. So this is a reflection from the trip. As mentioned thousands of times, I often love to simply enjoy nature -- meditating on it, taking it all in, exploring. I did a lot of that this weekend. Enjoying walks barefoot in the sand, claiming a stick as my walking stick, playing and relaxing in the sunshine, observing different plant life around the beach dunes and closing my eyes to simply listen to the sounds of the ocean, birds, wind and people on the beach. I believe taking moments like this, as cheesy as it may sound, allows you to be more in tune with something within yourself. We often forget that although we are creatures who live in civilizations, we are also part of nature. I believe that becoming more in tune with your surroundings allows you to care more about nature or the things around you, as you build a relationship with them, and allows you to refresh your body and mind. I know this reflection isn't very informative like most of my posts, but it's just a thought from the weekend I thought I'd share with you.

 

And besides sharing these words, I'd like to share some videos of reflection that I have made. I was trying to be artsy during my reflections, I suppose.

 

This first one is from this weekend, showing the beach at night with a campfire and the wind blowing all around. I was just enjoying the smells and sounds around me:

 

 

This second one was taken from my apartment window. I often like to reflect even in the city. In this one we're having a thunderstorm, so I was recording sounds of the rain. Sounds of the busy city can also be heard. It's interesting to realize just how loud it is on one's own street.